Around the world, we see governments cloak themselves in the language and symbols of sacred religions to legitimize truly awful things.

Whether Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or the U.S. government’s warrantless abductions of asylum-seekers, despots everywhere declare their deeds to be divinely ordained. In such a time, we Christians would be wise this Advent season to remember Matthew’s account of Jesus’s birth.

The Magi seeking the child who was born King of the Jews followed the star first to Jerusalem. There, they encountered the despot King Herod, who was frightened by the news they brought of the birth of this child. This child, Herod rightly understood, would one day overturn earthly empires — not by the sword, but by the cross.

The Magi continued on to Bethlehem and honored the baby and his mother with gifts fit for a king. Matthew then tells us that “having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.” Because the Magi took another way home, they played a role in thwarting Herod’s planned murder of the baby Jesus, allowing the infant and his family to flee to Egypt.

An actor leads a camel past the U.S. Supreme Court during a live nativity procession in Washington, D.C., on December 13, 2017. (Erin Schaff/UPI/Alamy)